Glengarry Glen Ross

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Play closed 12 January 2007

Apollo Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue, London

A major revival of David Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross in London starring Jonathan Pryce and Aidan Gillen.

"A thrilling, short, sharp shock of a show" The Daily Telegraph

David Mamet's modern classic Glengarry Glen Ross is set in an office of cut-throat Chicago salesmen. Pitched in competition against each other, they will do anything, legal or otherwise, to sell the most real estate. In this world of high stakes and hard sell, the mantra is simple: close the deal and you've won a Cadillac; blow the lead and you're f***d.

Lie, Cheat, Steal... All in a day's work

The cast for this revival of Glengarry Glen Ross stars Jonathan Pryce and Aidan Gillen along with Peter Brooke, Paul Freeman, Mattew Marsh, Tom Smith and Shane Attwool (casting subject to change).

"No better play conveys the spirit of our money-obsessed times than this enthralling, black comedy" The London Evening Standard

The Pulitzer and Tony Award winning play Glengarry Glen Ross was first staged at the National Theatre in 1983 and was subsequently produced on Broadway. In 1992 Mamet adapted his play for the screen in a movie of the same name which starred Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Al Pacino (who was nominated for an Academy Award) and Alec Baldwin as well as Jonathan Pryce who played 'James Lingk'. The play was last performed in London at the Donmar Warehouse in 1994. 2008 will mark the 25th anniversary of the original London premiere. This revival of Glengarry Glen Ross in London is directed by James Macdonald and marks, in 2008, the 25th anniversary of the original London premiere.

"A clutch of fine performances of carefully distinguished characters" The Times

The staccato street rhythms of the dialogue are as exhilarating as great jazz... edgy, exhilarating and blackly comic" The Daily Telegraph

"It's as a work play that James Macdonald's fine, pacy production excels: it never flags itself up as metaphor. Anthony Ward's design cleverly points to the gap between the guys' sales pitch and the backstage reality: huge technicolour images of rolling, forest-clad landscape flash down between scenes set in a drab brown diner and a grey ransacked office." The Observer

"James Macdonald's superb West End revival... the acting is splendid across the board"
The Daily Express

"David Mamet's Glengarry Glenn Ross... is unapologetically about men, their games of one-upmanship and the unevolved playground sensibility within which they are fated to remain trapped even as their hair turns grey. In director James Macdonald's hands it's an adrenaline-overdose, on-the-ropes knock-out of a production, which, running at just under an hour and a half, leaves you punch-drunk but masochistically, or, indeed, sadistically, wishing for more. It's also an expletive fest, which, far from being gratuitous, is a masterclass in using 'profanities' to outline character and psychology and win a laugh when you least expect one." The Sunday Telegraph

"Jonathan Pryce is impressive and Aiden Gillen offers a wonderful blast of stage energy, with strong support from Peter McDonald, Matthew Marsh and Paul Freeman" The Daily Telegraph

"[David Mamet's] terrific play Glengarry Glen Ross pretends to be naturalistic, but the way Mamet's real-estate salesmen speak, their pumped-up patter littered with four-letter words and repetition, is actually poetry in motion, a heightened theatrical language with the subtext of fear and despair boldly spelt out. And the texture of each character's speech is subtly, revealingly different... The performances do Mamet's writing proud." The Mail on Sunday